A running discussion on the Cincinnati Reds and everything else in the baseball universe.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Complacency Kills the Season

Complacency is the silent killer, as evidenced by the 2011 Reds' season. The Reds are where they are because they were complacent.

When a team breaks through to a new performance plateau, the following season is frequently a step backwards. The simple fact is that the break through likely occurred because a lot of things went right. More things than can reasonably expected to go right again. So, in order to offset the likelihood of a regression, it's important to take substantial steps to improve the team.

Unfortunately, the Reds failed to do so. To justify the complete lack of effort to improve, financial constraints are frequently cited. However, even if true, there are a number of payroll neutral moves that could have been made. There are two types of currency in the MLB world: 1) cash and 2) prospects. If the Reds were limited by payroll constraints, then they could have cracked open the farm system and dealt away prospects to improve the MLB roster.

Unfortunately, the Reds stood pat. Unbelievably, they stood pat. Inconceivably, they stood pat. They stood pat all offseason, hoping to avoid the almost inevitable backslide. They stood pat at the trade deadline, hoping that the status quo would get them back in the hunt. They did nothing except wait and watch the standings as the season slipped away.

If you step back and take a look at what the Reds have actually done this season, then it becomes rather difficult not to get frustrated... REALLY frustrated. As a fan, I invested a decent amount of time, money, and energy into the Reds this year. In exchange, I don't expect championships or even wins. I don't expect sunshine and rainbows. I DO, however, expect effort. I expect it both between the lines AND in the front office. If I'm going to make this type of investment on an annual basis, then I expect the organization to be at least as invested, if not more so. In hindsight, it's difficult to even conceive of what Walt Jocketty did all season. He constantly lets Dusty speak for the organization, he lets Chris Buckley handle the draft, and he didn't trade anyone. How exactly did he earn his money? By signing Bronson Arroyo to an absurd contract extension and a bunch of replacement level players to low cost contracts? Or, are we paying him to play internet hearts and sleep on the job?

Now, I don't think I'm unreasonable or irrational. I understand that trades require two willing partners. Just because we think up a deal, doesn't mean it can get done. Still, the utter lack of activity by the organization this year is...well...stunning. And, frankly, the lack of activity stands in stark contrast to that of the organization that is currently running away with the division.

If you take a quick look at what the Brewers have done, then it's not difficult to see why they are going to win the division.

1. On December 6, 2010, the Brewers traded Brett Lawrie to the Toronto Blue Jays for Shawn Marcum.

3.On March 27, 2011, the Brewers traded Cutter Dykstra and cash to the Washington Nationals for Nyjer Morgan.

4. On July 12, 2011, the Brewers traded Adrian Rosario and Danny Herrera to the New York Mets for Francisco Rodriguez and cash.

In short, the Brewers added two top of the rotation starters, a high-motor leadoff hitter, and a high-leverage reliever.

Now, let's compare those moves to what the Reds did this season:

1.On July 26, 2011, the Reds traded Jonny Gomes and cash to the Washington Nationals for Bill Rhinehart and Christopher Manno.

That's it. That's the sum total of the Reds efforts to improve the team for the 2011 season. One trade. A single addition-by-subtraction trade.

As I write this, the Reds are currently 14 games back of the Milwaukee Brewers. If you add up the relevant WAR figures for those 4 players, Zack Greinke (3.4), Nyjer Morgan (3.4), Shawn Marcum (2.4), and Francisco Rodriguez (0.5), then you get 9.7 Wins. While the Reds did nothing, the Brewers went out and purchased 10 wins with a month of the season still to play.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that those four players are the primary difference makers in the NL Central race. In the final analysis, the Brewers obviously wanted it more. That's it and that's all. When the history of the 2011 NL Central is written, it'll read that while one organization made excuses, another made moves to improve. Given those two realities, it's not much of a surprise who came out on top.

Little did we know, the Reds season was over before it even began, as the Reds simply weren't going to make the moves necessary to put us over the top. The sad part about the 2011 season isn't really the fact that the Reds failed to build off 2010. The truly sad part is that they didn't even bother suiting up. It's not the battles that you lose that rankle and fester, it's the battles for which you didn't even bother showing up. That's how it feels to be a Reds fan right now. The front office didn't bother to show up for the season, which will now undoubtedly go down as a missed opportunity. Instead of recognizing and seizing the opportunity to better last season's postseason performance, the Reds waited and hoped, demonstrating the kind of faith found only in the most pious and zealous of believers. Unfortunately, the only reward for such a display of faith was a missed opportunity and a hearty "wait 'til next year."

Albert Camus once wrote "I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and read the papers." I wonder if future historians will look back at the 2011 Reds and find that once again a single sentence will suffice: "They did nothing and read the standings."

16 comments:

JM (Stuttgart) You said the Reds blew it on trading Alonso, didn't they also blow it on Hernandez and aquiring anyone of impact in the last 2 years? And they are also pretty close to point of no return for converting Chapman to a SP. They seem to be missing on all the tough decisions.

Klaw (1:38 PM) I would put a lot of this year's disappointing results on Baker, but some on the FO too. Seems like they have had the assets to put together a more competitive roster, but haven't converted those assets like they should have. Totally agree on Chapman, BTW.

Your right and your wrong lark. Dusty and Walt did kill the season. Dusty's Shirley Temple attitude infected the team. Walt is not right for this job. This isn't 1980's Oakland and not 1996 St. Louis. His same old re treads won't work anymore. The Reds need FO people from the Rays, Marlins, Twins and Rangers. Jay Bruce looks like another Jeff Francouer to me. Four years in, his shoulder still flies way open unless it's the two months of the season he is on. To the contrary, I would not trade Yonder. His approach and swing with men on is perfect and will only get better. Some things i disagree about. I don't hate the way they have handled Chapman, he is raw and taking it slow is the right approach. Give him a shot in the spring to make the rotation. And you are really trade happy Lark. In my mind, you only trade young players if you can win the WS. Obviously the Reds can't and neither can the Brewers. So, the Brewers trading away the farm will not look that great in a year or two when they are awful. And for what? To make to the first round of the playoffs this year and get swept? I think every position except 2nd and 1st should be up for grabs next spring. I'd trade Votto this offseason before Yonder because where will Votto be in two years? Unless you find a spot for Yonder and bat him behind Votto next year. Despite way over rating the Brewers your still a genius Lark. If the Brewers win one playoff game I'll mail you a Brewers beer cozy. Yasmani, Soto and Henry Rodriguez took big steps this year. And that pitching staff at Dayton looks really nice. Peace Man.

To give you some perspective because you like value and WAR ratings so much (as do i). In all, the Brewers gave up a ton of players to get Marcum and Grienke. Marcum's War is 2.4, Greinke's War is 3.4. To add some perspective, Mike Leake's WAR is 2.5. So, with that in mind, how much would either one of those guys have really helped if you base it on what the Reds would have had to give up (Yonder, Grandal, Mesoraco, Corcino, Hamilton ETC.)to get them.

My opinion dovetails with the Keith Law quote I posted in the comment higher up the page. The Reds have the assets, but ultimately failed to covert those assets into value on the 25-man roster.

Basically, I'm looking at small-to-mid market teams as having a window. A period of time in which to win a championship or at least give yourself a chance at it by going deep into the playoffs. You state that the Reds can't win a championship, well...why not?? They were in the playoffs last year, so how much improvement would they need to at least get to the World Series? The Giants won it all last year with a flawed team that had significant holes.

As to your question about WAR and the cost of acquiring a pitcher like Greinke, to me the better question is whether a 4.0 WAR player today has the same value to the Reds as a 4.0 WAR player 3 years from now. Personally, I would argue that a 4 win player now has more value to the Reds because they are closer to winning a championship than they've been in 2 decades.

To me, the failure of the Reds this year is ultimately a failure to consolidate the assets of the organization into the 25-man roster. Basically, to convert future value into present value. How are we going to win with a steady trickle of minor league talent every couple of years? By the time it arrives, other talent is leaving through the back door for free agency. So, we end up on a conveyor belt going nowhere until such time as we falter in our ability to develop a steady flow of prospects (due to injury or just whiffing on draft picks and international signings, which happens to even the best organizations).

We didn't push all our chips into the pot this year. Hopefully, Jocketty knows what he's doing, because it seems like a missed opportunity to me. Great, next year Mesoraco and Yonder (if they can find room for him) arrive, but how long until Votto and Phillips depart? So, we add two and lose two (one of which has an MVP to his name). In terms of production/value, does that mean we are gaining ground, falling behind, or running in place?

You say we can't win a World Series, well drop Zack Greinke in at the top of rotation along with Johnny Cueto and I would gladly take my chances in October. Of course, we'd have to get there first and the front office lacked the will to do so this year.

Lark....you are the man. Your analysis is so informative. Seriously, man, keep this up. You need a Twitter, if you don't have one already, ap that you can get this stuff out to more people. Thanks, Adam.

Well, thanks! I appreciate it. As for Twitter, I hadn't thought of that before, but maybe it's something to consider down the road. Of course, my head might actually explode if I had to constrain myself to so few characters. Brevity isn't a exactly a strength of mine. :)

But see. The way i see it lark. is that the Reds can't win a WS until Mesoraco, Henry Rodriguez, David Vidal, Yonder and Corcino ETc. are in the majors. I just think they need to take five years to stock pile players as the Rays did. Think how the Rays would dominate in the pathetic Central. Not trade them all away for glorified Mike Leakes. Which, don't get me wrong, Mike took big steps this year. And the Brewers probably will win a playoff game and maybe even the first round if they play the D backs so i'm already mailing it lol. My point is, they can't beat the Phillies. Not a chance. And the fact is, that's who the Reds have to beat. They need to horde cheap inexpensive talent anyway they can until they have enough to beat Philly with those players and thru SOME trades. It's just not the time right now. The farm system is almost there. Just not yet.

Plus, I actually like the team next year. Chapman and Cueto at the top of the rotation. With Leake as a solid 3. A slimmed down yonder in left and at clean up protecting Votto. Mesoraco, Cozart, and Sappelt. And I know his swing is ridiculous but Fransisco is starting to hit AND PLAY SOME GOOD THIRD BASE!!!! The bullpen is a real question mark though.

So, if your boy Greinke goes 5 innings, 8 hits, 4 runs and 9 strike outs is that dominating? And you routinely bash Keith Law so why is he backing your opinion make it right? Your the man. Peace until next time.

Let's get the easy one out of the way first. I'm actually a very big fan of Keith Law, and while I've written a lot of posts on this blog and messages over on the message board, I can't remember a single instance where I bashed Keith Law. I've certainly disagreed with him from time to time, but overall I typically agree with his take.

Well, the problem is that the Reds farm system was better a few years ago when it had Bruce, Bailey, Cueto, and Votto at the top of it than it is now. Personally, I don't think the current crop stacks up as well as that crop.

And, of course, the other problem is that very few prospects actually reach their max 100% projection. Most fall short of their ceiling. So, it's easy to dream on the upside of your prospects, but the truth is many will fall short of what we expect/believe them to be. There is a significant amount of both performance risk and injury risk in even the best of prospects.

So, for me, banking on a farm system with fewer elite prospects to some how put us over the top in a few years isn't the best strategy for an organization that is only a hop-skip-and-jump away from a championship. The reason there are very few teams like the Rays is because it's very difficult to consistently be "right" on your prospects. Even the Rays missed by passing on Buster Posey for Tim Beckham. It won't take many injuries or "misses" for the Rays to slip down to second tier status again. Not to mention, for as good as they've been in player development, they have yet to win a World Series and are currently on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

As for not being able to beat the Phillies, well the Giants did it last year. A lot of things can happen in a 5 or even 7 game series, especially if you have the type of elite starting pitchers at the top of the rotation who can shutdown the opposition. Not to mention, there will likely always be a "Phillies" in the playoffs, so you can't run scared and forfeit the next 5 years just to wait out the careers of Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.

As for Chapman, it will be very difficult for him to be at the top of the 2012 MLB rotation. If that was the goal for the Reds, then they should have left him in the triple-A rotation this year. That would have forced him to refine his secondary offerings and stretched him out so he could handle a full-time spot in the 2012 starting rotation. Now, it seems more likely that Chapman will slide into the closer's spot to replace Coco.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Thanks for the comment!

Thanks for the kind words! Actually, because of the above suggestion, I signed up for Twitter a while back. I haven't really announced it yet, as I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize it, especially since Twitter seems best used for either breaking news or snarky comments. This blog has never done either, as it was always intended to be more analytical in nature, so I'm tinkering to see if I can do anything worthwhile in 140 characters.

Anyway, in that spirit, I've been tweeting since around the start of the postseason. So, if you want, you can follow me at: Lark_11

If I can figure out a way to use it to add value, then I'll probably fully commit to it and make an announcement about it in a blog post.

About Me

Blessed (or is it cursed) to be a Reds fan. I've loved baseball as long as I can remember. Played it until they told me I couldn't anymore. Now, always thinking on it.
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